Beware of the New Year Prophecy Scam!

 

With the year ending, we Christians look forward for New Year’s Eve where promises, prophecies and assurances overflow from the pulpit. Mostly the promises and prophecies are about becoming famous, rich, happy and prosperous, exciting all of us. It’s about owning a car, getting a new career break, financial abundance that will be shouted out by pastors and prophets to the promise-hungry congregation. This deception is an age-old trick carried out through ages and people still fall for it looking forward to lead a comfortable life.

If we were to draw a parallel incident that resemble this event in the Bible, it would be in 1 Kings 22 where Ahab's 400 prophets speak the same language of happiness, success and prosperity like all the Pastors, prophets and leaders of today. The Bible records the words of these 400 prophets which said, “Go up and triumph; the LORD will give it into the hand of the king” (1 Kings 22:12). This was the beginning of disaster and confusion for the king and the people. The same falsehood has seeped into the Churches so deep that it has robbed the purpose of its existence.

As we read the story we know that Micaiah son of Imlah was called at Jehoshaphat’s insistence. Micaiah' truth was hard  and  was from the Lord. I would like to point here that he was not rewarded for speaking the truth but rather was slapped across the face by one of the officers, Zedakiah (1King 22:24).  Sadly, history is repeating itself in today’s times. Most of the Christian celebrities, pastors and leaders are going to dish out false prophecies and happy promises to make the hearts of the people glad. 

Some notable blessings and prophecies are as follows:

·       You are going to be head and not tail

·       The barn house will always be full

·       All that you desire will be fulfilled

·       God will give you double.

·       You will not run out of dough and oil

We are so ignorant of the fact that Jesus never taught such things. His promises given by Him were as follows:

> You will have sufferings in this world

> You will be persecuted

> You will be hated by people

> You may be thrown in prison

>You will be brought before kings and Governors. (but that will be an opportunity to bear witness Luke 21:12-13)

> Many will be killed for His name’s sake.

> Will be betrayed by own family members

·       The end days is going to be so difficult even for His elect to bear the birth pangs as recorded in the gospels.

Yet we prefer to walk through the broad gate claiming hand picked promise verses and deceive ourselves. It never disturbs us that we have not influenced even one person with the gospel. As long as we pay our tithes and offerings to the Church we are good to go. The New year prophecy scam is robbing people of their purpose for existence. People's obedience to the Great Commission is not going to matter to many Churches at all as long as they are overfed, which they name it as blessing from the Lord.

We camouflage our disobedience with fun and frolic in the Churches and abound with false promises and prophecies. Remember the warning from the Lord through Ezekiel, “Since they have led my people astray by saying, “Peace,” when there is no peace, when a flimsy wall is being built, they plaster it with whitewash, therefore, tell those plastering it with whitewash that it will fall. Torrential rain will come, and I will send hailstones plunging down, and a whirlwind will be released.". Ezekiel 13:10-11 CSB. There was no mincing of words by the prophet.

Ponder over these following questions:

·  How many people this year have led someone to Christ?

· Beside speaking to the Christian crowd, have you connected with non-Christians?

·  How many people this year heard the gospel by some means through you?

It is good to retrospect. Stop listening to false promises and prophecies that gives you a sense of security but destroys your soul and robs your purpose for Missions.  Let us all strive to be the carrier of the gospel rather than wanting to become a dead fish comfortable in the four walls of the Church. 

 

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Deliberate Oversight!

If it is one thing that I want to emphasise in all my writings and conversations, it will be none other than ‘Mission'. Though lingering for ages, it is making sense to few and is always an avoidable option for many. Most often the Christians in the Churches are continually instructed and exhorted on Christian ethics like how to be good, godly, loving, benevolent, being a good husband /wife and a good parent. These are integral to any individual irrespective of any religion or creed. But then, when it comes to missions to the unreached world, it dilutes into a nice Christian philosophy. The Churches and Christians long to do something about it and eventually do nothing.

The gift of the Holy Spirit in 1 Corinthians 12 is often misunderstood for the anointing in 1 John 2:20, 27. Every individual who makes a commitment to follow Christ and becomes His disciple embodies Christ’s anointing. The anointing and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is often confused with the gift of the spirit. Holy Spirit is always misunderstood for something other than being a witness for Christ. Acts 1:8 which clearly states, “But you will receive the power when the holy spirit has come on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.”. Today, this is immediately referred to the day of the Pentecost and people who spoke in tongues. But then again, the truth is distorted with either a lie or half-truth. The Churches and Christians fail to understand the implication of the people who spoke in tongues. They were heard by people from so many languages and races who gave their lives to Christ. I have spoken about this in my earlier blogs too.  The great Pentecostal event was measured by real evangelism and measurable outcome which is found in Acts 2:41 “So those who accepted his message were baptized and that day about three thousand people were added to them.”.

Paul emphasises with these words in 1 Corinthians 12:29 “Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all do miracles? Do all have gifts of miracles? Do all have gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret?” The gifts vary but the commission to the unreached does not. The Great Commission is not optional for selected few, but for every individual who accepts Lord Jesus as Savior and Lord. Matthew 28:19 is a mandatory command which says, “Go, therefore, and make disciples in all nations….”.  We are constantly talking about the gifts of the Holy Spirit without equally emphasising on the obedience to Christ’s mission.

Why people are not guilty when they miss to understand and demonstrate the obedience to the Great Commission? Is it because the Churches have made the people comfortable with Church activities and offerings? Why is the outcome of the Churches always about full attendance and not about holding the members responsible for the failure in sharing the gospel with the non-Christians? Most of the Churches have a history of less than 5% of their members who share the gospel and lead people to Christ. But whereas 95% and more are the once who fall in the category of the Pharisee who said in his prayer “I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of everything I get.” (Luke 18:12) without remorse.  Many have no concern for the dying soul. We need to confess not only for the sins of commission but for the sins of omission too.

Let us not forget the call of Christ which requires us to be a disciple maker (Matthew 28:19) not just survive as a branded Christian. Mark the words in the Great Commission passage which says, Go, therefore, and make disciples. The disciples are the one who make disciples. But today in Churches the disciples are the ones who have a discipleship course certificate but sit in the Church unaccountable to the mission of God laid out for every individual. This deliberate oversight can be costly for all of us. Let us not forget, Jesus calls Himself a Good Shepherd by constantly moving about taking the good news (Luke 8:1). The purpose of the Church is to be the carrier of the Gospel to the dying world, not a reservoir.

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Blessings for Sale --2

  

This blog is a continuation of the 'Blessing' series (The 1st part of the series can be checked HERE). As already discussed, blessings are the most misconstrued topic in Christendom. It's stuck to our psyche that devotion to God ends up in material blessings. This theology of Christians is not very different from the Hindus. Lakshmi, the goddess of good fortune, wealth, and well-being is worshipped fervently by Hindus to get more wealth. It's weird that the God of the Bible is also looked upon in the same way. Also, the theology of being chosen by God is marked by one’s prosperity and poverty is because of one’s sins. This concept mirrors the prevailing caste system of Brahmins and Sudras.

There are pastors who believe that God gives you a 'key' to open blessings and such pastors have delusional goals of making it to the top 10 richest pastors in the world. Sadly, many have become Christian psychopaths preying on the sheep entrusted to them (Ezekiel 34:1), grooming in such false theology in people's minds. Peter on behalf of all the disciples’ clearly states to Jesus in Matthew 19:27, “See we have left everything and followed you. So, what will be there for us?”. I urge you to check the poignant response of Jesus in the subsequent verses.

Today, the Church finds it cumbersome to help the widows, fatherless, the orphans and the saints who are in aggressive mission work. It feels it has a greater calling and has come to the point of distorting what pure religion is in the sight of God. The Church is hoarding its resources and refuses to spend the funds got in God's name for those who mean the most to God - the widows, orphans, fatherless and the saints serving Him full time. We have become abusers of the very people that God wants to bless.

Riches need not necessarily lead you to the love of money. If that is the case, then people like Abraham, Job, Joseph and David would have been lovers of money. They are classic characters of the Bible who teach us how to channelize money to worship God. These men were rich but loved God, not money.

If the blessing of a man’s life depends on how much he has, then the lives of the rich and the famous – movie stars, pop stars and sports stars - would be examples to us on how we too should live and label it a blessing. Contentment is worth more than all the wealth we could possibly accumulate. The Bible warns us, ‘People who want to get rich ‘fall into temptation and trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge into ruin and destruction.’. (1 Timothy 6:9)

We need to understand this truth. God’s highest desire is neither to make us rich, nor to make us successful, popular or famous. God’s dream is to make us right with Him. Today, you find people misinterpreting this truth which talks about Jesus like this, “but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself to the point of death, even the death of the cross.”. (Philippians 2:7-8). We brazenly misinterpret telling that God made Himself lowly to make us rich. We sell garbage by manipulation to the Church.

Having walked the faith journey for the last 6 years, I can confidently say favor and grace of God has always upheld me to be a revolutionary for Him and turn many to Christ and to His mission. Even through the abuse I faced in Christendom, I was able to focus on God's purpose in my life and learnt my lessons well. Fulfilling God's purpose in our life does not require riches. I urge you brothers and sisters to lead people to Christ without promise of riches and guiding them to love God for who He is. This will undoubtedly enrich their experience of salvation rich rather than filthy promising them out God will bless them with riches. For this "Lakshmi" is enough.

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Blessings for sale! Part 1

  

"Blessings", The one word loved and adored by all of us. However, we fail to notice how God used it for His purpose that impacted His divine mission. Today, as Christians we exploit this word 'blessing' more than any people who belong to other faiths. We are constantly bombarded through preachings which says, that God would  grant all the desires, make us heads, and we would reach the top. People throng Churches to see if the promises come true or not. What they really expect is blessing of wealth, name, fame and a life without difficulties or hindrances. Eventually, they come to know that this is a surreal life they are longing for.

In present times, we ridiculously equate luxury and riches to blessing. We quote Genesis 13:2 “Abraham was very rich in livestock, silver and gold.”.  Our deep longing for riches mars our interpretation of Biblical verses. As Christians we heavily lean towards the life of riches and wealth rather being content with a life of just our needs being met. The Theology of work project comments, ‘The writer of Genesis states early on the story about the creation of humans, “God blessed them” (Genesis 1:28). The word “blessings” or “blessed” is a central feature of the biblical story. Part of the blessing of relationship with God is very definitely tangible, in-the-hand stuff. And these material blessings are thoroughly integrated with the other benefits of knowing and loving the creator.’.

Dealing with this subject in Christendom is like walking on egg shells. No one wants to decipher the real meaning of the word from God's perspective because we are shaking the foundation of their age old beliefs. Money can be earned in various forms both good or bad. Let us analyze few instances in the Bible, to understand the perspective:

1. Joseph's brothers hate for him ended in trading him for twenty pieces of silver (Genesis 37:28).

2. Achan's greediness forced him to conceal the rich spoil, i.e. silver and gold for his future settlement (Joshua 7:21). 

3. Samuel, one of the greatest prophets, sons Joel and Abijah were corrupt dishonest judges in Beersheba. They profited by taking bribes to pervert justice (1 Samuel 8:1-3).

4. Judas traded Jesus for thirty pieces of silver. He meets the Chief Priest to know what he would get in return if he hands over Jesus to them. The ransom satisfied Judas and he starts working on a successful plot (Matthew 26:15-16).

5. The Chief Priests with no shame or remorse bribed the Roman soldiers with a large sum of money to tell a lie about the resurrection of Jesus (Matthew 28:12).  

Well, if money is a blessing from God then the above incidents from the Bible do paint a sordid picture indeed. Money that we so desperately long for was used to kill our Savior and also tarnish the very fact He rose again. Let's ponder over our misrepresented thought process on 'blessing' before we delve deeper into this series in my upcoming blogs.

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Secured yet Scared!

 

The ones who are established with a stabilized income source are the ones who are most scared of losing their security. They want to do everything to ensure nothing is disturbed. Putting this in a Church context, the Church leaders and Pastors are careful that they don’t say anything that can cause offense, even the right and hard stuff. The fear of losing people and income threatens their security. So, they ensure to speak everything favorable to the crowd. They hand pick verses from the Bible that talks about encouragement and blessing of success.

The celebrity preachers have found this mantra and keep speaking words of success, prosperity, goodness and wealth. They are always in demand. People are willing to get them at any cost because they are tied to their personal prosperity. Micaiah’s are rare to be seen today. Let me take you to 1 Kings 22 where it talks about the Jehoshaphat’s alliance with Ahab. Ahab the wicked king befriends Jehoshaphat and urges him to go with him to fight Ramoth-Gilead (1 Kings22:4). Jehoshaphat was unsure about the whole thing but wanted to oblige based on the word from a prophet. Ahab had readymade 400 prophets (22:6) and were summoned. They all prophesized favorably and predicted victory. Because the spirit of the Lord was pricking Jehoshaphat’s conscience he wanted to check if there is any other prophet beside these 400 Prophets. Somewhere down in his heart Jehoshaphat could sense something is wrong. Then we notice Prophet Micaiah is contacted and instructed what to say. 1 Kings 22: 15 The messenger who went to call Micaiah instructed him, “Look the words of the prophets are unanimously favorable for the king. So let your words be like theirs and speak favorably.”

Micaiah was far from being compromised with cheap thrills of money or security. And this is what he said, “As the Lord lives, I will say whatever the Lord says to me” And he was harder to Chenaanah when he mocked Micaiah. As a consequence, we are told Micaiah was put in the prison and instructed to be provided with little bread and water until King Ahab returns. Micaiah ends the conversation with these lines, “If you ever return safely, the Lord has not spoken through me.”. The end for the king was a disaster as we learn from that chapter.

 Security at the cost of Mission can be very costly. I have been going to various trainings and speaking assignments in Churches. I have been personally instructed several times to mellow down, speak favorably, so that the crowd is happy and not offended. This is utterly sad and unfortunate state. In my faith journey, I am ready to risk everything for the sake of the Gospel and I wouldn’t budge from the true Mission God wants every single person to follow. As Dr Eric Mason points this out, “The popular preaching of our days is going to catch up with us! We promise people that if you follow Jesus that He’ll bring your dream to pass. We have made better entrepreneurs, dream chasers, and personal purpose Gurus than we have disciples.”. As long as the crowd is successful the Church assumes they can be successful and secured. Can we strip such false security and disturb the people in your Church who have lived comfortably all their lives? Every soul is a Church lying vacant for years, some for decades. They become the student of the Church all their lives. We need revolutionaries not just good Christians. Jared Wilson stated this powerful statement, “The mission is to make disciples of Jesus. Don’t settle for just well-behaved pagans or self-righteous Pharisees.”

 

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Church Protected Mission Ignored! Part-10

 “As he approached and saw the city, he wept…” Luke 19:41

I want to thank you all took the effort to read all the series under this topic “Church Protected Mission ignored”. This is the last series under this title. The intention of this blog is not to bring forth good content and excite the reader but to bring about a stronger conviction towards the mission. Church is inclusive of Christ’s Mission to the lost soul. However, in the process of busy managing the Church, mission to the unreached has suffered. We all want to believe everything is working well in our ministry and stay satisfied. In this series I am trying to bring about the missing elements and all that we intentionally and unintentionally overlook. We need a revival in our Churches. As Leonard Ravenhill stated, “In revival, God is not concerned about filling empty churches, He is concerned about filling empty hearts.”.

We are all familiar with the shortest verse in the Bible and can say without hesitation, “Jesus wept”. We see this happen in two incidents. I would like to dwell on one of them. But then why did He weep? Allow me to put in context the incident where Jesus wept over the city of Jerusalem. How much He yearned that the people in the city would believe the Messiah and find the truth. The Mission of Jesus was never to establish the largest Church in an identifiable, locatable place. It wouldn’t be easy for Jesus to do that way at all. In fact, it may now convince us to think that if He did that, no doubt He would have had the largest crowd of the century.

The Bible records the fame of Jesus spread throughout the region. The Bible says "Then the news about him spread throughout Syria. So they brought to him all those who were afflicted, those suffering from various diseases and intense pains, the demon-possessed, the epileptics, and the paralytics. And he healed them. Large crowds followed him from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea, and beyond the Jordan." (Matthew 4:24-25 CSB). Jesus could always have followed the model of establishing everything in one place. People would have anyhow reached Him. Instead, He kept on moving as recorded in Matthew 9:35 "Jesus continued going around to all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and every sickness.".

Contrary to His model, we want to be locationalized, stabilized and build without moving an inch. We follow the wrong path for revival and expect it to happen. Are we serious about following the pattern our Lord Jesus has left for us?

 Our master was not able to control His emotions when He saw the city which had the Messiah yet missed the opportunity to find the savior in their lives, He wept. Today, many of the mission headquarters are found in the prominent cities. The purpose of its existence is not always channelizing to Mission work. The Organisation, Ministries and Church building survives, however. But the true mission sadly has become an enterprise. True mission is the replica of Jesus’ 1-12-72 model in all possible manner that I presented in my 3^rd series. Ray Ortlund states, “The worst that can happen to a church is not catastrophic disaster but the tragic nothingness, the empty inconsequentiality, of dull "success" -- with a faithful doctrinal statement, good attendance, money flowing in, but it isn't for Jesus, and the Spirit has departed.”.

For most of us we think all is well with our ministry and Church as it still survives. The surviving is sadly gauged by the success of fund flow. If Jesus happened to live in body in our times. I am sure Jesus would have wept over many Churches existing and thriving devoid of His presence. How saturated is your city with the Gospel? Are you seriously moved with compassion? Are your eyes welling up with tears?

Jesus wept in two instances as we all know. 1. Over the city and 2. Over the person in the case of Lazarus. Today the so-called Christians are dead like Lazarus for years and yet not buried. Spiritually dead without the mission. All are taught to be busy and concerned enough to protect Church structure and facility in order be religiously sacred. When will we be concerned over lives and city? Protect the mission and carry the mission He has left for us to ardently follow.

   

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Church Protected, Mission Ignored! Part-9

           Holistic Mission

God is holistic and therefore the Church mission is holistic too! It is an integration of spiritual and physical component. Jesus’ intervention was both physical and spiritual. His mission statement in Luke 4:18-19 states, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, Because He has anointed Me To preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the broken-hearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives And recovery of sight to the blind, To set at liberty those who are oppressed; proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.”.  The greatest two commandment is an emphasis to love God and love others. Loving others is not necessarily a spiritual deal always. It is demonstrating the gospel of love in action.

David Bosch reminds with these words about the purpose of the Church, “the Church is both a theological and a sociological entity, inseparable union of the divine and the dusty.”.  The early Church carefully followed the holistic model of a Church. They existed with a vibrant evangelism model, active Church fellowship and with a structured social intervention. Acts 4:32-35 displays a divine purpose of the Church movement. “ Now the multitude of those who believed were of one heart and one soul; neither did anyone say that any of the things he possessed was his own, but they had all things in common. ³³ And with great power the apostles gave witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And great grace was upon them all. ³⁴ Nor was there anyone among them who lacked; for all who were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the proceeds of the things that were sold, ³⁵ and laid them at the apostles’ feet; and they distributed to each as anyone had need.”.  Is this ever followed in today’s Church fellowship? This has become almost impossible to be followed today. Then, they never rationalised much. It was spontaneous expression of commitment to the holistic Church mission model. The outcome of this approach is found in Acts 2:47 “praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved.”. The movement received favor from the community and then we see daily people were saved and were becoming part of the Church fellowship. Today many Churches are stagnant with zero growth and in many other cases people just float from one fellowship to another.

Quite often James 1:27 is quoted, “Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.”. How many Churches are taking it seriously? Today even the most vulnerable the widows, orphans, the abused are hardly recognised by majority of Churches today. Their value is gauged by how much they are able to give to the Church. They are spoken as an example where Pastors challenges the congregation by saying, if these people can pay why not others. All becoming  part of business transaction. We live in such a pathetic condition unfortunately.

We cannot pass by without referring to Job who fits into a perfect category of following the Holistic Mission. He was not only a righteous and blameless before God but was reaching out to the poor, needy and the vulnerable. Read this carefully, Job 29:11-17 “When the ear heard, then it blessed me, And when the eye saw, then it approved me; ¹² Because I delivered the poor who cried out, The fatherless and the one who had no helper. ¹³ The blessing of a perishing man came upon me; I caused the widow’s heart to sing for joy. ¹⁴ I put on righteousness, and it clothed me; My justice was like a robe and a turban. ¹⁵ I was eyes to the blind, And I was feet to the lame. ¹⁶ I was a father to the poor, And I searched out the case that I did not know. ¹⁷ I broke the fangs of the wicked, And plucked the victim from his teeth.”. Church, is this your model you are following? How are you preserving the mission? Is the Church consciously willing to stand with the poor and the needy? Karl Barth notes that when we see an image of the cross, we would do well to always include the other two crosses next to Jesus. Jesus spent his dying moments associated with the lowest of the low, keeping company with those the world condemns. The point of the gospel writers telling the story of Jesus next to two thieves is not to emphasise  who believed in him and who didn’t. The major point (my opinion) is to locate God.

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